Harukana Receive

In beach volleyball, there is no room for aces. To achieve victory, each player must find their one, irreplaceable partner that they can rely on in the court of sand. At least, that is what Haruka Oozora learns on her first day in Okinawa after moving in with her grandmother and her cousin Kanata Higa. While touring a nearby beach, Haruka stumbles upon some girls practicing beach volleyball and is quickly invited to join. This friendly practice game suddenly turns into a match when one of the girls, Narumi Tooi, notices Kanata approaching the court.

Although the two suffer a devastating defeat, Haruka finally realizes the reason for her cousin’s quiet and distant behavior. Kanata and Narumi used to be an exceptionally talented beach volleyball duo, until Kanata quit due to her short height causing problems for Narumi. Now, with the Junior Tournament just weeks away, Haruka must learn the intricacies of competitive beach volleyball and help Kanata overcome her crippling anxiety towards the sport that she once used to love.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Oozora, Haruka Main

Yuuki, Kana Japanese

Higa, Kanata Main

Miyashita, Saki Japanese

Tooi, Narumi Supporting

Shimabukuro, Miyuri Japanese

Tachibana, Ayasa Supporting

Itou, Kanae Japanese

Thomas, Claire Supporting

Tanezaki, Atsumi Japanese

Thomas, Emily Supporting

Suegara, Rie Japanese

Thomas, Marissa Supporting

Shouji, Umeka Japanese

Ooshiro, Akari Supporting

Kimura, Chisa Japanese

Tanahara, Ai Supporting

Kitou, Akari Japanese

Sunagawa, Mai Supporting

Koike, Riko Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Ogata, Mitsuhiro Producer

Kobayashi, Hiroyuki Producer

Isogai, Noritomo Producer

Reviews

Apr 20, 2023

beruud

Recommended

I have played Volleyball my whole life, and it was fun and sad to watch this series to its conclusion. Sad because I tore my rotator cuff so badly my arm would never swing again like it did. Watching the in and out of daily training and prep, the excitement of tournaments and the heat of battle, sweat dripping down your face waiting for the next serve.

Really enjoyed the inbetween with the characters, the comradery and fun they had, again very nostalgic for me. Pretty much spoiler free, but that last half of the last EP I am not going to lie. I cried. Reminded ... me when I was sitting in the sand, with the trainers and they told me I should not continue to play, my cuff is tore most likely. I felt very alone, defeated and knew, in my heart, that my Volleyball career was over.

But I have some bones to pick, it was not without its uneducated and inexperienced crap they always throw in.

For some reason any Volleyball movie, show, game, whatever they have to add some BS into it. This is not golf, this is not baseball and there is no friggen "top spin" in Volleyball. With the speed and violence of a hit, if you tried to "top spin" it like they were showing it would go into the net every time. Not saying you can't spin the ball but there is nothing even close to that in real volleyball.

The pokey is good, but a real beacher would go high and hard. That is how you play. Getting blocked? Go high and hard making the ball go flying off the block every time and most likely a point. THAT was never shown and very disappointing. That is how I used to win and win a lot.

The fact that every receive was near perfect unless it was an ace. Was annoying, in professional ball it was at a rate of 55-60% - in the show it was near 90% for amateurs. Uhh, no. Watch a friggen match once and you will realize this.

The wind... was rarely a factor in any of my matches. So I dont know why they would of even added that in there.

I know I sound like I didn't like it, but I did. I have learned to just accept anyone who produces a volleyball show / movie, whatever, never played it and wanted to make some special thing that won a match. Thus the above rant from a 25+ year volleyball player (and not a beer court either, collegiate, and AVP Four man (well the triple A level, not the pro).

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Dec 27, 2023

Drakestalker

Mixed Feelings

Harukana Receive is a sports anime produced by C2C studio that aired in the summer of 2018. The subject matter? Beach volleyball!

C2C are the makers of literally nothing else important and certainly nothing you've ever heard about.

Much like New Game! and other cute girl shows, Harukana features a grand total of 0 male characters.

The premise is that Haruka Oozora, a very tall athletic girl, moves to Okinawa to live with her grandmother and cousin, Kanata Higa. It was chance, or perhaps fate, that had her witness a game of beach volleyball one morning and immediately fall in love with the sport. Simultaneously, she also learns ... that Kanata used to be a very talented player, but she quit because of an inferiority complex regarding her height. With the Junior Tournament just weeks away, will she succeed in learning the intricacies of competitive beach volleyball in time? Will she be able to help Kanata shake off the crippling anxiety she feels towards the sport she used to love?

Harukana Receive made for a strange viewing experience because it constantly tried to be something it’s not. Let me be frank. This is a fanservice show. To pretend otherwise is to be delusional. One MAL reviewer writes: “I went into this show expecting it to be a full-on fanservice machine, until I was quickly proven wrong in that it has a well-grounded story behind it.” Oh, shut up. A well-oiled fanservice machine is exactly what it is. There's enough cameltoe, ass, tits, jigging, bouncing, and yuri bait (oh, so much yuri bait) in here to make Tatsuya Egawa proud. Am I upset about that? Not at all! The drawings are a cut above the average ecchi show in terms of polish, and the sex appeal in and of itself is an order of magnitude more tasteful and natural-feeling. It looked extremely sexy and I must confess I very much enjoyed it.

What I did not enjoy was how seriously the show took itself and how seriously it expected you, the viewer, to take it as well. No, I’m not going to take your drama seriously while you constantly throw girls with giant heads and enormously colorful eyes in my face, incessantly exclaiming things like “Kya!” and “Teehee!” while frolicking around on the beach in amazingly tight swimsuits. The constant somber tone, the emotional flashbacks, the melodramatic backstories, it just got to be too much after a while and I simply tuned out. If you want to make a show about hot girls wearing bikinis 2 sizes too small and swinging around tits too big for their age, by all means, go forth and do the Lord’s work, my fellow man of culture – but then don't try and turn around and pretend you've made Captain Tsubasa.

I am reminded of Bill Burr’s wisdom in regards to plastic surgery. There's nothing wrong with being 52 and looking 52, but there is something unnerving about being 52 and looking like a 28-year-old lizard. Stop it. Just be who and/or what you are.

Just like Showgirls will never be Citizen Kane and Caitlyn Jenner will never be a woman, so, too, will Harukana Receive never be Slam Dunk.

Besides, it's fucking beach volleyball, yo. As an individual who is personally not at all interested in sports, I have found sports anime to have the amazing ability to make all manner of sports interesting to me in the context of the given show. My middle name is Raul, but it’s supposed to be pronounced Raúl. My father named me after Raúl González, the famous Spanish football player. My old man hoped that I would grow up to be a football fan like him. Suffice it to say that it did not go his way. However, while I would not be caught dead watching an actual football match, I've gone an entire day without food because I was too busy binging Galactick Football (yes, I know it's a French cartoon, not anime, shut the fuck up). Same goes for basketball. I've never had an interest in it, but Kuroko no Basket has become one of my favorite anime of all time.

But fucking beach volleyball, yo? Like, I understand that I'm somewhat of an exception in that I do not care about any sports, not even the popular ones, but honestly, who in the world actually gives a shit about beach volleyball? Don't get me wrong, I’m sure there are people who care about it and take it seriously, but enough to center an entire TV show around it??? Would anyone have watched this show had it not been for the half-naked girls posing suggestively every 30 seconds? Don't answer that. It's a rhetorical question.

This kind of felt like the 2007 film, Pride. “They were Philadelphia’s first all-African American swim team! Pride, determination, and resilience!” Really? It’s all the way down to swimming, is it? Yeah, you know what, I don't think I really give a shit anymore. I'm all out of white guilt.

The very first line in Harukana is some esoteric speech about how there are only two kinds of sports, solo sports and team sports, and among team sports, beach volley is unique in that teams consist only of 2 players, which is why it is of paramount importance to find that one special irreplaceable partner whom you can trust with your life, not unlike a marriage – I told you there’s is a lot of yuri bait in here. Setting aside the overly dramatic musings of the author, that's not even factually correct. Beach volley is not the only sport played in doubles. There’s doubles badminton, curling, tennis, pickleball, footvolley, squash, table tennis, and then a variety of other competitive sports that do not have a direct adversarial format, such as pair figure skating, synchronized diving, motorcycle sidecar racing, bobsleigh, kayaking, and so on, and so forth. Granted, none of these sports are widely known mainstream iconic activities, but then again, neither is beach volley.

All the talk about dreams, goals, rivalries, becoming better, stronger, faster, evolving, the trauma of defeat, trust & betrayal, putting everything on the line, dedicating one’s self to the craft, and lifelong ambitions left me completely cold. What lifelong ambitions, bro? You've literally not been alive long enough to have any of those. Why are you crying after losing a match in some random inconsequential local tournament like you just watched Old Yeller get shot? When Haruka once ignorantly states in jest that maybe she’ll become an ace, an out-of-proportion edgy character gives her a smoldering death stare and declares in the most hard-boiled way possible that there is no such thing as an ace in beach volley – somehow making another esoteric point about the selfless nature of the sport. Yeah, ok, relax, Hot Topic. You’re not storming Normandy here. It's just fucking beach volleyball, yo. It does not matter. Does this make me a hypocrite given how invested I get in video games and how emotional I get when others tell me “It’s just a game!”? Perhaps, but it doesn't change how I feel. The simple fact of the matter is that I wasn’t sold.

Speaking of hypocrisy, there is another very similar show towards which I have been much more positive. Free! is a Kyoto Animation production about a bunch of ridiculously attractive young guys swimming. While I don't want to belabor the point of Free! too much here, for I will write a proper essay about it in the future, there are 4 key differences between the two shows to consider.

First, swimming is just straight up a significantly more mainstream and relatable sport than beach volley. I'm not saying that swimming is some kind of international phenomenon like football or golf, but compared to beach volley, it may as well be. Second, male sexuality and female sexuality are not equivalent and I have neither the time, nor the patience to pretend they are. Third, with very few exceptions – 2 or 3 if memory serves – what I have seen of Free! (the first 2 seasons) does not feature any creepy close-up shots of the guys’ abs or pecs. You get to see them shirtless a lot, but given the subject matter, it never feels unnatural. Put another way, Free! features precious little shots or camera angles that would get a real-life cameraman fired at, say, the Olympics. Take the key visuals of this show as an indication that Harukana Receive, well… does. Fourth and last, the difference in animation between Harukana and Free! cannot be overstated. I often make this point, but the value of presentation mustn’t be overlooked. As DigiBro famously said, aesthetic is narrative. Kyoto Animation could make a show about watching grass grow and there isn't a shadow of a doubt in my mind that it would still be intensely compelling and interesting purely on the merit of how beautiful the animation and artwork would be.

Still, as long as you're fine ignoring the pretentious themes and tone of the show, it's a surprisingly competent production considering its relative obscurity.

If you like cute girl shows and especially sexual fanservice, you'll have a good time with this one! If all you're looking for is something to scratch an itch for thicc anime bitches, I would argue there are other ecchi shows that are more… direct in their approach, but Harukana’s artwork is difficult to beat. Additionally, if you're passionate about beach volleyball, you'll love it. Keep in mind, though, that it does not have much of anything to offer aside from that.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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Nov 20, 2023

Nightscape00

Not Recommended

I thought the show started off strong, but by the end I really thought it was subpar. I like the voice acting, graphics, and the music was fine. There was a coloration of some of the anime characters' eyes that I had not seen before. Can’t say if it was good or bad, just personal preference on how you like the eyes of anime characters drawn, but do give them points for at least trying to be original. I thought it was an interesting concept to not have any males aside from small children in the show, but dude to block out the face of ... Kanata’s deceased father while showing the mother is just messed up. I actually thought the show up to the end of the first tournament was quite good. Then the show just starts going downhill. Overall, I have three major complaints with the anime.

The first is that it is very long-winded and can be very slow - it was downright boring at times. There is very little character development in the show and it relies too heavily on flashbacks. They should have just spent the first three or four episodes using flashbacks but then left them alone for the rest of the show. They also pull that stunt where they will replay the last few minutes of the previous episode, like we didn’t just watch it. You can tell the writers and director were having a difficult time filling twelve episodes worth of story.

The second is the lack of character behavior diversity in the show. I noticed that pretty much every volleyball team had players that acted nearly the same. Each team has an outspoken hothead and a subdued coolheaded individual. Every team ends up feeling pretty much the same; characters feel just way too similar at times. Haruka, Claire, and Ayasa almost feel like the exact same character.

My third complaint is actually the development of Haruka, and Kanata to a lesser extent, in regards to volleyball ability. Basically, they are too good. You are telling me a rookie with one year under her belt and someone who had not been active in years, who only won one match in last year's tournament ends up defeating the defending champions and the second best team in Japan?! A team that has never stopped training and has a pro volleyball coach as a mother?! GET OUT OF HERE! I would be fine if it was a close match due to them training together, but Haruka and Kanata winning the tournament? That is too hard to swallow and breaks the immersion.

I really enjoy volleyball myself and had high hopes for this show as I really enjoy Japanese sports anime. However, with slow plot development, characters with little diversity in the way they behave, and Mary-Sue like characters that are somehow able to beat top athletes with a fraction of the time and training everyone else had put in, this is unfortunately one anime I cannot recommend.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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